Wednesday, March 12, 2014

Warning to Computer Users: Windows XP Being Put Out to Pasture

If you have an older computer, it's almost for certain that it's running Windows XP. Am I right? Maybe Vista, if your machine is really ancient, 98 or Me, but most likely, it's XP. And your frugalness is about to come to an end. Microsoft plans to stop releasing updates to the program in a few weeks, which will leave your computer vulnerable to viruses, malware and your basic nuclear annihilation.

People are already starting to stamp their feet about it. How dare they! Don't they know a huge chunk of computer users still have Windows XP? Yeah. But how long were they really supposed to support the thing? It came out in 2001 you guys. Actually, just a couple of weeks before September 11, 2001. The whole Bush administration and five years of the Obama administration have happened in that time. Were we supposed to get hip-deep into the Clinton (or, shudder, Cruze) administration before they pushed it into its grave?

The fact is, Apple stops supporting its products after just a few years. Microsoft's alone in supporting what amounts to ancient software in computer years. But I'm in the same boat. Though our home systems have Windows 7, Windows 8.1 and OSX Mavericks, at work we must have seven or eight XP machines. After the 2008 financial collapse, we didn't upgrade much. To make matters worse, our software upgrades pretty much stopped with our hardware. . .and the old stuff doesn't run well on new machines! So, we're going to (finally) have some decisions to make.

You've been warned!

[Excerpt]Microsoft to Take Windows XP Off Life Support Despite Its 29% Market ShareChange: It’s inevitable in and of itself, and it’s inevitable that some people don’t like it.
Ars Technica cites a report from Net Market Share contending that Microsoft’s almost-13-year-old operating system, Windows XP, can still be found on almost 30% of computers that connect to the Internet. . .